So, this started with me writing some stuff about doing some stuff
about Aikido. I was already pretty sure that I had no idea how in the
world was to actually be affected by the world, but I figured if I
spoke as honestly about whatever I might have learned, I probably
couldn't do any real harm. I still hope that's a fact.

Then in about February and March I with some good friends and some
approval, I was started to build a dojo. I had a feeling that it was a
group plan, but that was just starting to grow when my life had a
change in July. I was having a "Thanks" party in July about the 8th or
15th, I'm not positive just now, but something like that. As I was
taking some ukemi, I had a temporary feeling like my sinuses were
releasing, and the smell was somehow familiar, but not necessarily
identifiable for me. That sounds like a small thing, but keep
reading... I felt just a little funny when I found out that no one
else smelled it, and took a couple minutes, just washing my big face,
and then I got back on the mat, and had a good time. I thought all was
good.

On the following Monday, I was at a job meeting for about 3 hours, and
afterwards, myself and the young newer guy who I was supposed to be
helping to learn the job, went up on the roof, and looked at a few
items which mattered, and at one point as I was scooping under some
wire conduits (surprising good movement for a fat guy), and my sinuses
cleared again, but this time I could kind of "hear" some goofy jingle
that had never been actually heard, but the part of me that knew about
the whole thing simultaneously went "that's stupid". After a few
minutes, less than two, I was ready to leave, and as I was moving
through the building, and as I was driving between the two large
cities, I was thinking I was having two pretty weird symptoms, and
wanted to get to my doctor, because my Granddad had a stroke, and was
stuck to the word (ready for the true swearword?) was Shit. I would
have been okay with that if necessary, but there must be more
possible, if I get myself all together. As I drove, I'm talking to the
guy I was working with, and honestly being completely honest, but I'm
sure that must have been a little scary for him, but he was okay and
said later that I had a pretty good awareness that there was something
less than right.

I dropped the newer guy off, and then went to see my doctor. I tried
to explain what had happened, but in truth it sounded as if I was
telling some silly story. I made enough of an effort that he began to
see in how I told the story, that stuff didn't make more sense, and so
he sent me to the local hospital just a few blocks away, I told him
I'd drive, and he said, no that I should call my wife. At that point,
my calm waited, but little it became easier to explain my weirdness to
medical folks with the extra stress. It was real; I was getting to be
real sure I was undergoing on a stroke. They took a CT scan, and said
they found some kind of a lesion, which seemed even weirder than a
stroke. They asked me to spend the night, and told me that the next
AM, they would do a MRI to show better what the problem was. My test
was about 11:00-1:00, I forget my time, but somewhere in that general
time. A few hours later, a neurologist comes in and asks if I have a
copy of the MRI films, and I started to laugh, and he suddenly got
that and said he'd be back after he gets a look at them.
About two hours, I get a quick call from a local hospital and she says
that she has some kind of information to make some details clear to
me, and the earlier neurologist walks through the wall, figured I had
just started a conversation with the lady hospital accepter, and kind
of took over that conversation with her (good job on his part, as
tight as that might sound at first). He told me that what they had
found was an amalgam, no tumor, because it was so small. I had a
biopsy a couple weeks later, and they decided it was now an official
tumor, because it was just partly a little amalgam. It was
unnecessary, because it was unwise to remove to the tumor because it
was somehow in a dangerous place. When my world was all re-set, I
ended up getting the tumor removed, and it was in a dangerous area,
but the doctor, I had, Thank God, done something called a "Brain Map"
so I was a little scary, but I managed to be reasonably able to still
continue with conversation, more or less. Unfortunately, at the end of
this last (I so hope), that they found some type 4 tumor, and that's
what's presently available. I fortunately, closed the dojo before this
operation, but sometimes, the way things end up the way they do, and
ya don't get a choice in how life works out.

I now have a storage area where the mats are, but a new version of
Aikido Santa Clara is a very unlikely probability at this point. Too
bad, but stuff happens, and that's the way things go. As for me, there
is much work, and much preparation before I get a chance to win the
fight I'm in (or at least to be prepared to be involved in the fight
for a few more years until they are ready to let me have the actual
real cure, which I'd love to have.) I doubt that I'll have any
particularly desire to write a lot more about Aikido, except after
seeing a seminar by someone who's experience I care about.

I'm a long way from having quit, but I'll be a hell of a lot less
forward as well.

Mike
Formerly Someone from Aikido Santa Clara
A Short Bad Student of Kato Hiroshi, and before that Jack Wada